by Tom Pelissero, USA TODAY Sports

by Tom Pelissero, USA TODAY Sports

LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. - It would've been hard to envision Athletes First becoming the biggest agency in pro football when the business launched in David Dunn's living room in 2001. It would've been even harder to envision amidst the turmoil that followed for seven years.

Yet here the agency sits, its 11,000-square foot headquarters on the top floor of a pristine office building in Orange County, a dozen certified agents among its 20-person staff, upward of 120 players on its star-studded roster and 25 more set to enter the NFL through this week's draft.

In an ever-changing game that continually devalues an agent's ability to negotiate contracts, Athletes First has taken the idea of a "full service" experience to the extreme - and its continued growth suggests bigger may indeed be better.

"From a pure economic model, it's like, 'Look at this overhead,'" Dunn told USA TODAY Sports recently, sitting on a couch in partner Brian Murphy's office. "It all comes from when we were going through crisis. We had to service our clients or we were going to lose them in that time of travail. All of who we are now is sort of a function of all that. Bizarrely, it's sort of worked out."

Flash back 13 years to the split with partners Jeff Moorad and Leigh Steinberg, who gave Dunn his first job in the industry. They later installed him as head of the football division at Steinberg, Moorad & Dunn, around the same time it was bought by the Canadian financial firm Assante.

Dunn, Murphy and Athletes First's third founding partner, Joby Branion, had a vision and an initial base of 25 to 30 clients, including quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Then came an ugly legal battle over their departure from Assante, a $44 million judgment against them and a two-year NFL Players Association suspension for Dunn, who reiterated recently the firm "unequivocally knew that we had strictly adhered to (top attorneys') advice and had done nothing wrong."

He and then the agency filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, putting the suspension on hold, and "A1" spent three years in limbo before an appeals court threw out the verdict. A financial settlement was reached and Dunn began serving what was reduced to an 18-month ban from negotiating contracts in November 2006. That was when the team approach to client service and retention really took hold.

"We had no doubt there would be adversity and that there'd be a lot of people who didn't want to see us succeed," Murphy said. "But we just kind of stuck to our core beliefs that if we do it with the right people, the right way with the right reasons, eventually, you will survive."

BREAKOUT

By the time Dunn's suspension ended in May 2008, Athletes First had not just survived - it was a budding powerhouse. It had signed rookies selected at the top of the draft (Joey Harrington, the No. 3 pick in 2002 and Carson Palmer, who went first in 2003) and veterans such as Ray Lewis and Matt Hasselbeck.

In 2009, the agency had its best draft class ever: five first-rounders, including top-10 picks Mark Sanchez and B.J. Raji, and future star Clay Matthews, whose horde of endorsement deals is an example of added value an agency can provide at a time rookie contracts are slotted and simple to negotiate.

"You're always going to complain anytime you have to give money back, whether it be taxes or agent fees," Matthews said. "But I can honestly say they do a fantastic job for me."

Last year, Aaron Rodgers joined Bledsoe and Palmer as the third Athletes First client to sign the largest contract in NFL history - a seven-year, $130.75 million pact with the Green Bay Packers. Seattle Seahawks star Earl Thomas became the NFL's highest-paid safety last week. Matthews is the league's top-paid linebacker. And the client list keeps getting refreshed with young talent.

In the past five drafts, 51 Athletes First clients have been taken in the first four rounds, including Matthews, Thomas, Von Miller, Doug Martin, Kyle Rudolph and Cordarrelle Patterson.

Established stars such as Jamaal Charles, Wes Welker and Reggie Wayne are A1 clients, too.

Only CAA Football can compare in terms of numbers - 109 active contracts negotiated, per the NFLPA, including many of the game's top quarterbacks - and that firm was built by merging the successful practices of Tom Condon, Ben Dogra and Jimmy Sexton. Rosenhaus Sports, run by brothers Drew and Jason, has 102 active contracts. Athletes First has 126.

"Obviously, (contract negotiation is) the aspect of what we do that's written about in the papers and goes along the bottom line of ESPN," Dunn said. "But especially with our guys, it's not why they're with us and it's not why they value us."

FULL SERVICE

The 2011 collective-bargaining agreement all but eliminated sales pitches to rookies about contract negotiation. Now it's about what else an agency can do, and the size of A1, with more than $1 billion in current contracts in tow and a marketing arm that did $15 million in deals last year, lets it offer advantages many smaller firms struggle to match.

The agency hired Matthews' trainer, Ryan Capretta, to move to nearby Irvine a few months and train the 2014 draft class, including top prospects Jake Matthews (Clay's cousin), Marqise Lee, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Ra'Shede Hageman. Players were loaned high-end apartments and cars. There is also a sports psychologist and a nutritionist available to work with them.

"There's a lot of people who will try to cut costs and just ship them off so they don't have to provide all that stuff," said Mark Humenik, Murphy's old roommate at Notre Dame and a partner along with Dunn, Murphy, Branion and Justin Schulman.

"Our whole philosophy is to do more."

Sometimes, that just means procuring Los Angeles Lakers tickets or helping a player find a moving company. Other times, it means standing by clients at their darkest hours. Last year alone, A1 had one client (Aaron Hernandez) arrested on a murder charge, another (Miller) caught in a drug-testing scandal and a third at the center of a bullying scandal (Richie Incognito).

Ryan Williams, the firm's director of client marketing, has a stack of jailhouse letters Hernandez scrawled on yellow legal paper in the drawer of his desk. It's evidence to the new clients that no matter what happens, someone - and there are a lot of options - will have your back.

"They know we're going to be there for them, they know we're going to be loyal to them and they know we're not just going to be typical yes-men," Murphy said. "We don't panic. We don't get upset. We don't lose control. We've been there. We've done it."

It's no coincidence A1 continually tries to groom and empower younger agents. Williams said when he was a 22-year-old intern, Dunn armed him "with a corporate card and a telephone and said, 'Just go do it.'" (Williams earned his keep by booking John Lynch a Campbell's Chunky soup campaign.)

The likes of Bledsoe were willing to follow Dunn and company to the new agency back in 2001, in part because they'd developed stronger relationships with men closer to their own age. By developing their own, the hope is loyalty to them and the company will keep everyone together - along with the fact that, even with maximum 3% commission, they're all handsomely paid.

LONG-TERM PLANNING

Dunn is 52 now. Murphy is 43. They're not making late-night trips to Los Angeles when the rookies need a break, but somebody will answer that call, just as somebody will be waiting outside the locker room after a game or attending a card show. Williams, 34, represents Jake Matthews. Andrew Kessler, 33, represents Lee. David Mulugheta, 30, has Clinton-Dix.

"We are setting Athletes First up to be around for a long time," Murphy said. "We have succession plans in mind."

Matthews picked A1 based largely on word of mouth - another advantage of being the biggest firm out there. Almost every player knows somebody in the family, or in the case of the Matthews clan, is literally family. Another cousin, Troy Niklas, also is in this year's draft class.

The question going forward is, how big is too big? After all, the mega agencies in the days A1 launched - Octagon, IMG, SFX - either are gone or have seen their client list slashed as agents broke off to join or start competing firms.

"I am conscious of this in that it's very important for me to maintain the feel of this firm," Dunn said.

"I do not want to be perceived as overly corporate. I think that if it were just a couple of agents, it would be more of an issue."

Dunn increasingly has poured himself into the coaching field, representing Jim Harbaugh, Chip Kelly and Jason Garrett. He also has ex-clients in broadcasting such as Lewis, Steve Young and Trent Dilfer - older men he can relate to as players seemingly get younger and younger.

That leaves plenty of room for others to breathe and grow. Branion runs the satellite office in North Carolina. Mulugheta is based in Texas, Joe Panos in Wisconsin and Camron Hahn in Kentucky, giving A1 bases all across the country.

Recent negotiations to sell the agency to Wasserman Media Group reached an advanced stage before both sides had second thoughts. So, for now, A1 will keep doing things on its own terms - and continue to grow perhaps not only beyond the original vision, but beyond anything the industry has seen before.

"As long as everyone buys into what our philosophy is, I don't see any ceiling on it right now," Humenik said. "There's always the competitive issue, because people say, 'Oh, you're too big, you're too big.' But I think if you provide excellent service, there should be no bounds on it."